Jupiter's Halo Book One: The Lies

Chapter Twenty-Two "The Red Tableau"

The link stair leading down from the primary section of GS-114 was blissfully free of bloodstains. Itona led her marines from the front, only the two scouts she’d sent out ahead of her.

The stairway was broad but each section short, switching back on itself after every dozen steps to keep its entirety within a narrow shaft.

The chatter of Timonny's squads filled her mind as they talked back and forth through the comm-link. As mission commander, she could dial into any channel and she'd left them all open to alleviate the silence of the station.

They were telling a story of chaotic destruction in the primary section. Walls had been knocked through, the contents of every room wrecked, broken or crushed.

Those who had made it up to the first level talked of shattered glass walls and destroyed lab equipment. It was clear from their words that the functions of the machines they looked on were beyond understanding. That or they were so badly wrecked there was no way to tell what they had originally been.

As yet no one had called out finding the source of the regular thudding sound they'd heard after entering from the loading bay. It had followed them, waning in and out of loudness, as they made their way to the stair entrance. Once inside she'd found the thin air blissfully free of the noise and had been surprised at how relieved she felt. There was something inevitable about the way it just went on and on and on. She heard talk of it growing louder as searching squads neared the centre of the station.

One marine had mentioned the drifting smoke covering the floor from a still spurting halon system in the laboratory ceiling. Itona's imagination pictured the scene like something out of the old-fashioned fright films that were occasionally played on some of the lower grade wavecasts. The flickering lights did nothing to remove the darkness and she was sure she could feel the cold of the station air leeching through her armour and raising the fine hairs on her arms and neck.

The stories of destruction sounded like a tank had been driven through rooms above and Itona found herself wondering at what could cause such devastation. At every passing moment, she expected to hear screams of alarm as something horrific and bloodthirsty launched itself from the unending shadows.

Logically there were plenty of options to explain the damage that sprang to mind, but none she would ever consider being deployed within the relatively tight confines of a space station. Whoever or whatever had attacked GS-114 had used something either completely new or so unlikely it was beyond the boundaries of normal consideration. Neither prospect boded well and her imagination ignored the sensible ideas to concentrate on the monsters lurking in her psyche.

The lack of noise pressed in on her. It was unsettling. The main body of GS-114 was pressurised with a breathable atmosphere, but the only noise was that of her and her marine’s movements. The station seemed empty. Dead.

The lights set high into the sloping walls flickered randomly, strobing her steps and making it more difficult to discern detail. She wished they’d stop, either coming on fully or blacking out completely would be preferable. Their continued stuttering between the two was getting on her nerves. Inconsistent power; not a good sign.

She continued down at a measured pace, her marines scanning every angle with raised weapons as they went. Whatever had happened on the station hadn’t happened in the link stair and their sights went without targets.

A report from her scouts told her they'd reached the end of the stair and the entrance to the secondary section of the station. They reported sighting no movement, the final exit door still intact and shut tight under lock-down protocols.

Itona picked up her pace, careful to keep her footing as she accelerated down the narrow steps. A fall here wouldn’t kill her, in fact, with the station’s gravity barely pulling on her if she missed a step her foot would simply keep going. It would leave her tied to the step above by her boot’s clamps, performing the splits as her leg extended and looking less like a leader than a fool in front of her marines. She was limber so it wouldn’t hurt her body. It would hurt her pride.

She reached the last section of stairs, turning sharply to bring herself onto the final flight and stopped abruptly. The following marines pulled up sharp behind her, almost colliding into her. They couldn’t know the reason for her sudden stop. They couldn’t hear Timonny’s voice on it’s direct link to her mind.

>“Captain, I believe we’ve found the… station’s crew.”

His mental voice was ashen, carrying an empathic nausea, shock and terrible, terrible fear through the comm-link. Itona tried to push the feelings aside, but they were too strong. Whatever Timonny had found had shaken him to the core.

>“Control yourself, Lieutenant,”she returned, her impulse to be stern overcome by the sheer intensity of Timonny’s emotions. >“Show me.”

Itona opened another channel and issued orders for Johs to ready the link stair door for breach. His acceptance came instantaneously and marines filed past her and on down to the exit as she waited for Timonny to respond.

>“It’s… it’s… ”Timonny’s message broke up as revulsion washed out his words and Itona was forced to stop herself from vomiting as the urge flooded through their link.

She breathed deeply, settling herself and reflected on the downside of the comm-links. They were unrivalled for tactical communication; an order given in thought would reach its target in a fraction of the time it took to speak the words. It could send messages over vast distances, travelling at near the speed of light to relay mission status and updates. With her comm-link, Itona could reach anyone, almost anywhere as long as they were implanted in the same way, but there were negatives to match the positives.

For a start, anyone with a comm-link almost anywhere could reach her at any time. There was nowhere and no when she could ever really be alone and the technology used to integrate it into her mind meant they had the capacity to communicate not just what they thought, but what they felt. An untrained or unguarded mind sending messages could deliver any emotion directly into the recipient’s head. She’d heard of marines turning weapons on themselves to escape the bleeding agony of a dying brother that invaded them via an open link.

One story told and retold across the fleet spoke of a sergeant turning his gun on a captain who was suffering from exposure to a vicious contagion attack. His comm-link open on a wide band, sharing his delirium with the entirety of the mission force and rendering them useless. She heard how this sergeant had been the only one unaffected, how he managed to hold back the infectious spread through sheer willpower. The story went on at length, usually far too long, about how the marines were easy targets, unable to defend themselves, shot down in swathes by the enemy.

And so, once the suspense was built the teller would go back to the Sergeant, the lone member of the force able to think straight and the terrible decision he faced: sacrifice the mission and many more marines to save the Captain or sacrifice the Captain to save the mission and the marines.

It was always left hanging at that point, even though every listener would be aware of the choice that had been made. The Sergeant had spoken to the Captain, unsure if he would hear or understand what was being said. The words varied from story to s********e said it was simply an apology, others that the Sergeant declared his actions were for Luna or the Company. Nobody knew for sure, but every time it was retold the teller was certain their version was the truth.

And so the Sergeant had made his decision. He’d taken his Captain’s sidearm, spoken the words that only the two of them would ever really know the truth of and fired. One shot.

The mission had been saved, the marines free of the comm-link’s infection rallied and put down their enemies with extreme, exaggerated force to avenge the loss of their Captain.

The last part of the story was always celebrated, always told amid whoops and cheers; it’s moral lost to the blindness of patriotism and machismo.

Itona knew the story well and she knew the details in it that were wrong. For one, the Sergeant didn’t hold back the contagion by force of will. He had help. By what he didn’t then understand and still struggled with to this day. Itona knew another detail that was entirely wrong in the story; the Sergeant they spoke of wasn’t a man.

Aitkin knew the details too. He had been there…

Her mind wandered for a moment, searching for the feeling of his presence. It was still there; faint and deep, still bringing the sensation of bitter cold when she focused on it. He was alive, somewhere and she would see him safe before this mission was done.

She put the thought from her mind and readied herself for the sight another bonus of the comm-link provided; optical sharing.

>“Just show me, Lieutenant.”She insisted and her vision blurred for a moment as the scene before Timonny’s eyes faded over hers.

Itona drew in a breath and reached out a hand to steady herself, clutching at the wall for purchase. The sight before Timonny’s eyes was shocking, even to her.

It wasn’t the gore; blood she’d seen in plentiful quantities during her career with the Deorum military. It wasn’t even the scale. Death was death, it happened to everyone eventually. She'd seen death up close. The deaths of her friends, of her enemies. She'd been its cause on too many occasions to count. But she'd never seen anything quite like this…

>“I’ve seen enough.”She sent to Timonny and the image faded to be replaced by her own view of the link stair and Johs’ engineers working on the exit door.

Itona shivered, unable to see the fate of GS-114’s crew any longer, but knowing the picture would be there when she closed her eyes. The dismemberment was bad. The grisly way in which they’d been arranged was worse. There was something like a sick attempt at comedy in the way they’d been posed.

Some were propped on others to create scenes akin to everyday life, but most had been set as if engaged in carnal adventures. The positions were made grotesque with missing limbs, crushed skulls and the viscera pooling beneath the ‘participants’ where their bodies had been emptied.

There were a few with an especially twisted slant that Itona found she couldn’t look at too long.

Neither the blood nor the tableau was the part that really chilled her though.

The eyes. That was it. The open, terrified, dead eyes.

Every one of them had their eyes open. As if someone had gone to each body individually and prized the lids apart.

Itona shook her head to dislodge the next thought before it took hold, but it was too late. She hadn’t known. There hadn’t been anything in the mission briefs or the records she’d pulled. It stood to reason though. The crew of the station were long-haulers; assigned for decades at a time and all but cut-off from the rest of civilisation in this tiny, forgotten corner of the solar system.

Of course, it would happen and she chided herself for assuming she’d missed the information. There wouldn’t be any information. It wasn’t strictly illegal, but it was against protocol and Command weren’t renowned for their patience in determining the difference.

None of that mattered now. They were dead. All of them.

Itona shook her head again and focused on the work to open the door.

>“Give me an update, Sergeant.”She sent to Johs.

The big Sergeant turned and gestured with a raised finger.

>“One more minute, Captain.”

>“Good.”

Itona let the link close and stepped carefully onto the last flight of stairs. She kept her hand outstretched against the wall, not trusting herself to remain steady without aid.

One minute was good. She still had a mission to complete, but every second she stayed on this station the more it seemed to eat into her soul. It was a dead place, they would find no survivors here, she already knew.

There was still more she had to accomplish on GS-114. The sooner the door was open the sooner she could get to it and be off and back to the Pride. She felt a longing for the comfort of her quarters, her world, though she knew the first time she slept her dreams would be filled with images of the station’s crew.

She had to finish the mission. Find Aitkin and get back. Whoever murdered the station crew might still be on board and the idea she would get the opportunity to find them and exact a measure of vengeance was a small sliver of bittersweet hope.

She opened her link to Timonny.

>“I need you to confirm whether any of the science team are in the… ”“Whether any of them are there.”< She finished.

Timonny returned a silent confirmation and she pitied him for the task he now had to undertake. She knew him well enough to know he would not check personally, not when there were subordinates to do the dirty work for him. But he would still be there. He would still see the same things she did when he closed his eyes.

“Get that door open, Sergeant.” She said the words out loud as she reached the foot of the stair. “I’m not staying on this faith forsaken s**t-can one second longer than I have to!”

Johs slapped a marine kneeling by the doors panel on the shoulder and gave a deep nod as the mechanism succumbed and slid open.

Itona stepped past them into the darkness of the corridor beyond and stopped as the catastrophic damage to this section of the station was revealed.

Marines filed past her in silence, taking up covering positions along the corridor and glancing around at the shattered internal walls and blood smears that mirrored the c*****e they had already passed.

In the dark Itona saw the eyes staring at her and she shivered, despite the temperature regulation of her armour.

They were dead. All of them dead and all of them staring at her. Every face. Even the smallest ones, the ones arranged sitting on larger laps or held tight in cold, dead embraces. She felt their accusation, their fear. They didn’t know why they were killed. They didn’t understand. Itona tried to push the vision from her mind but it stuck fast.

How could they understand?

How could she have known?

The station roster declared eighty-one souls, but there had been more than that aboard. She didn’t know how many. She couldn’t bring herself to count the eyes.

Marooned in the gulf of space the people here had done what every generation of humans had done before them.

They’d had children.